


Apprehension

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [126]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, YCMAL 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27824230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “You played really well tonight,” Jared says. “You’ve been on fire lately.”Bryce laughs. “Why are you saying that bitchily?” he asks.
Relationships: OMC/OMC
Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [126]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/849798
Comments: 10
Kudos: 305





	Apprehension

If the Flames make the playoffs, it’s thanks to Bryce. If the Flames play the Canucks, it’s Bryce’s fault. He’s playing like it’s his responsibility to single-handedly drag his team into the playoffs, and it’s working. The Flames take the eighth spot from the Jets, build on the lead, and with two games left in the season, they’ve pretty much cemented things as long as they get two points. If they win both and the Golden Seals lose in any form in their one final game, they’re heading to Vancouver. Jared’s not worried, but only because ‘worried’ doesn’t feel like a strong enough descriptor.

The Flames win their next game, and with that, they’re in. Bryce calls him exuberant and tipsy a few hours after it wraps up as he’s walking home from the bar — none of them are staying out too late, not when they’re flying out the next morning, but some celebration has been had.

“Sorry I don’t get to see you in a few days,” Bryce says. He doesn’t sound that sorry, but then, Jared wouldn’t be either. No one wants to miss the postseason. “Well. Maybe if we’re lucky.”

“You played really well tonight,” Jared says. “You’ve been on fire lately.”

Bryce laughs. “Why are you saying that bitchily?” he asks.

“I’m not saying it bitchily,” Jared mutters, but it did come out kind of bitchy, actually.

“J?” Bryce says.

“It’s like you want to play me in the first round,” Jared says.

Bryce is quiet for a moment. “Jared,” he says. “Are you mad at me for playing well?”

Jared would feel a little cornered if Bryce didn’t sound amused. “No,” Jared lies anyway.

“Babe,” Bryce says. “I can’t just not work hard.”

“I know!” Jared says. “I just — kind of don’t want to play you in the playoffs, you know?”

“I kind of don’t want to play you either,” Bryce says. “But I definitely don’t want to not make the playoffs.”

“I know,” Jared says.

“Or play the Scouts,” Bryce says. “They’d probably like, sweep us.”

“Upsets happen all the time?” Jared says.

But really they probably would. They’re almost certain to be the victors, if not necessarily in a sweep. They’re a juggernaut this year, and President’s Trophy doesn’t guarantee anything — hell, some players think it’s cursed — but it’s almost unfair how good their team is. A mix of killer drafting and experienced players who’re clearly giving up salary in the hopes of kissing Stanley means it’s their Cup to lose. 

The Flames win their final game of the season, but so do the Golden Seals, so Bryce is headed to Kansas City, and the Golden Seals are coming to Jared. Jared knows his sense of relief is probably in direct proportion to Bryce’s sense of disappointment, which makes him feel guilty. Still relieved, but guilty.

*

The scheduling gods are being kind for once, because they’re set to only play the same day once, and that’s a Saturday with two different start times that don’t overlap. It means Jared can watch the games and vice versa, and Jared can’t keep Elaine company during the games when he’s out of town, but apparently Gail and Gordie will be, so at least she isn’t stuck watching alone. 

Jared goes over to Gabe and Stephen’s a few times before the playoffs get going, him and Gabe and Dmitry talking strategy while Dmitry’s wife Oksana and Stephen play with the kids, who are very cute, unlike their father, and surprisingly well behaved considering said father. It’s a weird situation to be in, watching game tape, Dmitry talking about chopping at a recently injured ankle — that’s some cold blooded shit Jared is now considering — while bouncing his baby on his knees, breaking off musing about maiming dudes to blow raspberries against his cheek.

“Guess you’re not headed for a divorce, huh?” Stephen says as they load the dishwasher. Jared wanted ‘watch movies with the kids’ duty but Gabe claimed seniority. “Must be a relief.”

“Rude,” Jared says. “But yeah, kind of a relief.”

“You might be facing off against one another next round,” Stephen says. 

“Might,” Jared says. If the Flames get through the Scouts gauntlet, and the Canucks get through their series, they’d be the highest and lowest seeds, so — yeah. It’s a possibility Jared has to consider, that this is just a stay of execution.

“But probably not,” Stephen says.

“Hey,” Jared says. 

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Stephen says.

“You’re a dick,” Jared says.

“A right dick,” Stephen says, and only laughs when Jared elbows him.

*

Jared eats breathes sleeps hockey, watches Golden Seals game tape when he’s not working out or practicing or reading the reports their coaching staff put together, strengths and weaknesses, assets and liabilities, places to dig in. They’re probably going to be matched up against the Golden Seals’ checking line, which means they’ll have the edge on talent but really not on physicality, that they’re going to be checked every second of the way when they’re on the ice. Dmitry’s musing about ankle chopping is sounding like a better and better idea, and the series hasn’t even started.

The Flames play first, and Jared takes two and a half hours from his very busy eating breathing sleeping hockey to watch Bryce play.

“I’m nervous,” Elaine says, sounding both very nervous and sort of sheepish about it. “For both series. It’s going to be a long few weeks.”

“You can hold my hand if you want?” Jared says, and it’s mostly a joke, but she does grab his hand a few times during the game.

The Flames are clearly outmatched from the very beginning. They’re trying, Bryce among them, but the Scouts seem to have the ice tilted at their net, and their forecheck’s brutal when the Flames can even get in there, so many neutral zone takeaways that Jared wonders if the statisticians quit counting. It’s an ugly game, not good hockey — well, supremely good hockey from the Scouts, but not the sort that’s enjoyable to watch — and Jared basically has a permanent wince on his face. 

The final score’s 2-0, but it would have been a completely different story if Kinder hadn’t been standing on his head, the D doing the best they could to help keep it from him in the first place. The Scouts made Bryce look like a ghost out there, which was the worst part. 

“Well,” Elaine says when they go back to the commentators. “It’s just one game.”

She sounds glum about it. Jared feels glum about it.

*

The Canucks don’t exactly pull a Scouts on the Golden Seals, the game a lot more back and forth, a lot of sloppy play, offensive zone chances for both teams, but they win it by two as well, in a 5-3 final. Jared had an assist on one of them, goes home with a puck in his bag, ‘first playoff point’ scrawled along it, puts it on the dresser in his room before he takes a picture and sends it Bryce’s way. 

_Another to add to the wall_ , Jared texts, and Bryce calls him on cue, sounding a hell of a lot happier than he did when Jared called him last night.

“Get a goal next game,” Bryce says. “Sending two at once would save on shipping, and I know you’re big on that kind of stuff.”

Jared snorts. “Will do my best,” he says. “For the shipping savings, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Bryce says.

*

The Flames go into Game Two frustrated, and sometimes frustration can drive play in a good way, but usually it just throws blinders on. This is the blinding kind.

The frustration starts boiling over halfway through the second, the Scouts up by — Jared would prefer not to think about how many goals the Scouts are up by right now. Suffice to say that Kinder is currently wearing a baseball cap and fuming, and if Jared didn’t have a game tomorrow he’d be drinking as much as Elaine is.

The Flames are fuming too, and Jared sees flashes of Bryce’s temper he hasn’t seen in years, in every after the whistle scuffle, and then when the second’s drawing to a close, he gets into it hard with Williams, looking genuinely furious.

“Fuck,” Jared says.

“I can’t watch,” Elaine says, hiding her face in Jared’s shoulder. “Tell me when it’s over.”

It doesn’t escalate beyond some pretty hard shoves, Williams getting a few whacks in with his stick before Simcoe’s hauling Bryce away with an arm around his throat, Jared’s teeth set on edge until the linesmen intervene. They get coincidental roughing minors, the top centre of both teams out, and no one’s really taking advantage of the four on four, while Bryce and Williams don’t stop talking the entire time, it seems, yelling at each other from their respective penalty boxes. They get a lot of footage of that during the second intermission, the talking heads all musing about ‘passion’ and ‘gamemanship’ while Jared just hopes Bryce doesn’t murder or maim the dude. 

“What do you think they’re saying?” Elaine asks.

“Do you want to know?” Jared asks. He could certainly venture a few guesses.

“Probably not,” Elaine says.

Jared can’t honestly say he’s surprised when Bryce ends up right back in the box in the third for cross-checking Williams to his hands and knees right in front of the ref, though he is not impressed.

“Embellishment,” Elaine murmurs. Her loyalty’s touching, because it absolutely wasn’t. Bryce did not pull that cross-check. Jared could see the power in it as much as the frustration. The coaching staff needs to get him under control.

Jared doesn’t say any of that, of course. Not to Elaine. Bryce will be another story, because Williams has gotten into his head and if the Flames want to have a chance in hell, they need Bryce on the ice, not in the box

The final score’s 7-1. The Scouts are up 2-0 in the series. Jared hopes Bryce wasn’t right about the sweep, but it’s definitely more wish than actual conviction.

*

Bryce doesn’t call him, and Jared knows he’s on a plane home, knows that he needs to sleep himself, because he’s got a game tomorrow, an important one, a freaking _playoff_ game, but he re-watches their first game against the Golden Seals so he feels like he’s doing something useful with his time, waits up until he gets a text from Bryce, a simple _landed_ , and then calls when he figures Bryce has gotten home.

“Hi,” Bryce says. Jared doesn’t think he’s imagining the thread of anger in his voice. “You should be sleeping, you have a game tomorrow.”

“I know,” Jared says. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay,” Bryce says.

“So hey,” Jared says. “That sucked.”

“Yup,” Bryce says.

“You okay?” Jared says.

“Yup,” Bryce says, a little sharp, and absolutely not true.

“If you don’t want to talk—” Jared says.

“I do, I’m sorry,” Bryce says. He just sounds tired now. “I’m just—”

“Pissed off,” Jared says. “It’s fine, I get it. You need to vent?”

“You okay with that?” Bryce says. “You’ve got your own—”

“Vent away,” Jared says, and gets a good twenty minutes of bile about the Scouts. It’s directed at Williams and Simcoe in particular, but Jared doesn’t think anyone gets spared with the exception of like, the back-up goalie. And this is Game Two. Two more to go, worst case scenario. Four to five, best case. 

“You need to go to sleep,” Bryce says, cutting himself off mid-sentence, like maybe he just noticed the time. “Fuck, you have a game.”

“I’m okay,” Jared says.

“No,” Bryce says. “Fuck, sorry, go to bed, J.”

“Send me a vent-y email if you need to work it out of your system?” Jared asks.

“Okay,” Bryce says, and Jared wakes up to a whole thread of emails, reads them while he eats breakfast, snorts when he reaches the end of it, which is just ‘FUCK THE SCOUTS’ and so many exclamation points Bryce must have been holding the shift key for a good ten seconds.

_Fuck the Scouts_ , Jared replies, gets a response after he’s driven in for pregame, _good luck today!!!!_.

A number of the Canucks are laughing about the Flames game when Jared gets in, and Jared knows that makes sense, Calgary’s a divisional rival that just got embarrassed, of course they’re talking shit, but it gets under his skin a little, especially whenever Bryce’s name comes up. Jared knows that Bryce doesn’t have the best reputation in the league — opponents respect his level of skill, but the temperamental shit he pulled particularly early in his career has continued to flavour his depiction in the media, and, it’s very obvious right now, in locker rooms.

“Come on, need a stretching buddy,” Gabe says, which is transparently him trying to get Jared away from the guys making cracks about his husband without knowing they’re making cracks about his husband, but Jared happily takes the excuse. It’s not like he doesn’t need to stretch anyway.

They stretch in comfortable silence, one in which no one is insulting Bryce. Obviously he doesn’t want the Scouts to beat the Flames, but the insults would go up to eleven if they were about an opponent, and Jared doesn’t know how well he’d deal with that. How well Bryce would deal if the Flames were trash talking Jared. That’s a thought. Not a good thought.

“I used to be that flexible,” Gabe says, sounding a little wistful about it. 

“Then you got old,” Jared says.

“That’s ‘experienced’ to you, young man,” Gabe says. “You looked comfortable out there last game though. Know a lot of guys who puked before their first playoff game, like it was their first game in the show all over again.”

Jared shrugs. “Strong stomach,” he says, grateful that the nerves didn’t show. “Nerves of steel,” he adds.

“And so modest,” Gabe says, and Jared barks out a laugh. “We’re gonna get you a goal tonight, Math.”

“Oh yeah?” Jared says.

“Yeah,” Gabe says, and Jared believes him.


End file.
